A lot of jobs have people working at desks for extended periods of time. However, eventually they may run into issues and injury. Therefore, it helps to practice some desk stretches. These stretches can help reduce the strain placed on your muscles…
Desk Stretches: Why They Help
Minimizing strain
The real benefit that comes from desk stretches is how they help minimize strain. Over time, as you sit and work at your desk, your body tends to not move very much. As a result, this leads to a lot of tension on your muscles, and can cause them to get strained. It’s this strain which then leads to injury as you do it every day.
Therefore, you want to reduce this strain as best you can. Taking a 5-10 minute break every hour is one way to do this. During this break, it’s a good idea to get up, walk around a bit, and give your eyes a break from the computer screen too. Of course, this is also the best time to get some stretches in.
Hand stretches
The first type of hand stretches people will do tend to be hand ones. These stretches will cover you fingers, wrists, and forearms. First, make a fist, while keeping your thumb straight, not tucked inside. Then, slowly slide your fingers up your palm until the tips are near the base of your fingers.
After this, you can stick your arms straight out, and slowly rotate your wrist around until you feel a stretch. Next, sit with your palms together and elbows on a table, and slowly lower your wrists down towards the table. Hold all of these for about 3-5 seconds, and repeat a few times to get the best stretch.
Neck and back
The neck and back are also two areas desk stretches help out. A very common neck-based one is the neck relaxer stretch. For this stretch, all you have to do is drop your head slowly left, right, forwards, and back for a few seconds each time. That way, you stretch out all sections of your neck.
For your back, the standing stretch is what many people prefer. While standing up, slightly bend your knees, and place your hands on your lower back. Then, push your hands forwards while gently leaning back to stretch out those lower back muscles.